Sample #1: Introduction to the IEDP
Sample #2: Guidelines for Writing Posts to IEDP Discussion Lists 
Sample #3: Responding to an IEDP Post - An In-class Collaborative Exercise
Sample #4: A Sequence of Classroom Exercises that Support Deliberation
Sample #5: Initial Self-analysis of IEDP Participation
Sample #6: IEDP Network Instructions & Analyses
Sample #7: Annotated WWW Bibliography
Sample #8: Informative Paper Assignment
Sample #9: Argument Paper Assignment
Sample #10: "Website" of 3 - 4 Linked Pages to Inform Members of an IEDP Forum
Sample #11: A Civic Document To Enhance Citizen Knowledge and Action
Sample #12: Collaborative Project for the IEDP Face-to-Face Conference
Sample #13: Guidelines and Netiquette for High Quality IEDP Discussion

Heidi McKee, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

The IEDP is an on-line gathering of over ___ students from around the country. Using e-mail and web-based forums, students discuss and write about issues of social and political importance in American society.

The IEDP provides a forum to use writing to explore your own views on various issues and to share these views with fellow college students from around the country. Because you will receive immediate feedback from a real audience, the IEDP will also help you gauge the effectiveness of the various rhetorical strategies you use in your writing.

We will participate in the IEDP from _____ until ____. During this time the number of your hand-written journal entries will be reduced.

Access to a computer linked to the Internet. To access a school computer you must have an OIT account.

1) After we spend part of one class period navigating the IEDP web site, you will have some class time to read the posts that have been made and to write your first posting to the discussion, introducing yourself.

2) Each week you will need to write at least one substantive post (250+ words) and a couple shorter responses to the discussion. Before we begin this project and while we participate in it, we will frequently discuss ways to engage in on-line dialogue. (I say we because I participate in an on-line discussion with the various faculty members involved with the IEDP, so many of the issues you will wrestle with, such as, "What do I do if no one responds to me?" are also ones that I wrestle with as well. Maybe together we can figure out what seems to "work" in on-line discussions.)

3) Every two weeks, we will spend some class time sharing posts and discussing issues brought up in the forums. I encourage you to use the forum as a place to "try out" the arguments and evidence you will use in your argumentative essay.

General Information is available at: http://www.trincoll.edu/prog/iedp/

The IEDP discussion forum for Spring 2001 is password protected and limited to IEDP participants. The web address is <http://my.trincoll.edu>

Assignment Sample #2:
Guidelines for Writing Posts to IEDP Discussion Lists

Linda Shamoon, University of Rhode Island

• to encourage democratic discourse

• to explore ideas in depth

• to build good e-mail conversation skills

• to make a clear and reasonable case for one's views and concerns

• to remain open to others' views

• Read all (or all new) posts on the subject

• Select and thoughtfully analyze a few posts of interest that have a topic in common

• Plan and draft a response

• Reread and revise your response

• Update the subject line for the header if it is not appropriate

• Send the post

• Name the person(s) and paraphrase the idea or statement to which you are responding.

• State a very brief preview of the main thought of your message.

• Elaborate your position (tell your story, cite facts or source, state reasons, etc.)

• Invite others to respond by asking genuine, discussion-provoking questions.

I am responding to Steve and Jill on why no one else seems to be getting involved with environmental issues. Is it laziness, lack of education, or what? I believe some of it has to do with laziness but a lot also has to do with education.

Some people litter because they don't have the energy or make the effort to walk the five steps to that garbage can and throw their garbage out. They don't realize the damage that they're causing with that one little candy wrapper that they drop on the floor. Some people are in the mentality that someone will eventually pick it up off of the ground so what's the difference.

I do, however, feel that a lot also has to do with lack of education. For instance, no one did anything to save the dolphins until news of their plight was advertised all over the place. Once people knew what was happening, they got involved. I remember sitting in my fifth grade class and writing a letter to boycott all tuna that wasn't advertised as being caught in a dolphin safe manner. Today, the nets used to catch tuna are supposed to be dolphin-safe and the yearly by-kill and by-catch has been reduced from millions to practically zero. This was achieved through a big campaign to advertise and educate people about dolphins.

If anyone else knows of other species that have been saved through education, I'd really like to hear about them. Jill also asked about efforts to educate people about litter. I'd like to know about that, too. Thanks!

Cathy Jones
URI

Assignment Sample #3:
Responding to an IEDP Post - An In-class Collaborative Exercise

Linda Shamoon, University of Rhode Island

Directions: On the attached sheet are three short but complete threads from the forums at the IEDP site. Read through the threads and decide which of the threads you want to respond to. You will pair up with another person who wants to write to that thread. As you go along, develop answers to each question below and save them to a file on your floppy disk. When done, print out the answers in one document.

Co-authors - put your names at the top of your document and the thread to which you will respond. Now:

1. Decide together to whom you are responding. (You can respond to more than one person.) Enter their names on your document.

2. Decide together the specific ideas to which you are responding, Summarize this in your own words and record your summary in one or two sentences.

3. Brainstorm and talk through your one or two best response(es) to these ideas and your best evidence to support this best response. The best response usually can be explained in a sentence or two but it is made compelling when it is accompanied by evidence. Evidence can be: a personal experience, a real life example or two, a clear statement of your reasons or reasoning, comparisons to similar things, statistics, or quotes.

4. Once you have decided on your best response and supporting evidence, write this up in a clear, easy to read paragraph. Together, reread the paragraph for easy reading on line; revise as needed.

5. Now together embed this paragraph into a full IEDP style posting. Here is the full format:

Philip Burns, Worcester state College, MA

Exercise A:

Exercise B:

1. Go to the most productive of your IEDP forums and read all of the posts about an issue you've been discussing.

2. For each post, make note of any claims that are not substantiated--and that you think need to be substantiated.

3. Also make note of any other kind of information (factual, statistical, demographical, etc.) that has not been supplied but that needs to be supplied if the participants in the discussion are to be fully (or sufficiently) informed about the issue.

4. Go to our local discussion board and post a message in which you identify your issue and list all of the types of information that seem to be missing from the discussion. That is, list the kinds of information that would fill the "knowledge gaps" in that discussion.

Exercise C:

Go to the IEDP forum that is associated with your current Report project. Read (or re-read) all messages whose arguments might benefit from the research you've been doing. In reading these messages, look for a place where you can enter (or re-enter) the deliberations with a post that moves the discussion forward on the strength of the new information that you've come up with. Then make sure that no one else has already contributed the same information.

Compose a post that will enter smoothly into the current flow of deliberations, a post that incorporates your new information in some meaningful way. Post your message to the forum at the appropriate juncture, either as a post with a new subject line or as a reply to a post on an existing thread.

Heidi McKee, University of Massachusetts at Amherst

Whether engaging in deliberation or persuasion with others, rhetors (a term for people who write/speak a message to others--in this case, you!) can always benefit from self-reflection upon their own positions.

Attempting to understand the cultural forces that have shaped your belief systems can not only help determine how you wish to present your views to others, helping you locate what rhetorical strategies will be most effective, but it can also help you attend more closely to what others are saying.

While it is not necessary for rhetors to bare their souls to their audiences (if that were the case, I'd imagine most of us would hardly speak!), you do want to be able to explain your cultural positioning in a thorough manner so that your audience can understand more clearly why you believe what you do. (Reference the class handout from today for samples of IEDP posts that attempt to engage in this strategy.)

In later class periods we will spend some time analyzing the rhetorical strategies employed by other students in the IEDP, but first I would like you to take some time analyzing your own postings. Read your first post or two and please answer the following questions in a typed, journal-like response (journal-like--do your best with spelling, punctuation, grammar, but my focus in reading these responses will be more on the ideas and analysis you present.)

Please print out the post (or posts) to which you refer and hand it (them) in with your response.

Assignment Sample #6
IEDP Network Instructions & Analyses

Beverly Wall, Trinity College (Connecticut)

Student Multi-Class Network Instructions
Web address: http://courses.trincoll.edu/courses/IEDP/

Basic instructions: Read and participate substantively once a week--at a minimum--in both an Issue/Topic Forum of your choosing and in the Group Open Forum to which you’ve been assigned (i.e., a minimum of at least two substantive posts each week).

As of October 1, 2000, over 700 students have joined us on these forums from other classes at Trinity, as well as at Wellesley College, California State University-Hayward, Villanova University, Merrimack College, Worcester State College, University of Rhode Island, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, St. Joseph College, Bradley University, New York University, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and University of Wyoming. The forums give us a rich, complex model for exploring digital rhetoric and argumentation in the public sphere and for experimenting with modes of participatory democracy on-line. At three points in the semester you will have an opportunity to analyze and reflect on your experience on the network with these assignments:

Multi-Class Network Analysis #1
Due Thursday, Oct. 19

Collect and print out all of your posts as of Oct. 17. Choose one post that you consider your best or that you find particularly interesting, and write a rhetorical analysis of your argument (two pages). Hand in the complete printout, along with your analysis.

Multi-Class Network Analysis #2
Due Thursday, Nov. 9

Choose two posts--one by you, one by another network participant--involving a direct exchange that you find valuable or interesting to analyze. The exchange may be an argument that you expressed, followed by a direct response from another writer; or it may be an argument made by another writer, followed by a direct response written by you. Write a rhetorical analysis of the exchange (three pages). Print out the two posts and hand in with your analysis.

Multi-Class Network Analysis #3
Due Tuesday, Dec. 5

Write a rhetorical analysis tracing the thread of a discussion that you were involved in (four or five pages). What was the question or issue? What claims were made and positions taken? How was evidence used? What was the tone and how did the participants interact? Was your mind or anyone else’s mind changed or enlightened or were views modified? What’s your evaluation of the quality of the discussion? Print out five representative posts from the thread (including two by you) to hand in with your analysis.

Deborah Burns, Merrimack College

This assignment asks you to collect TEN web sites on two discussion topics from the listserves of your choice. You need to be a critical reviewer of these sites. Remember, anyone can create a web site, and information is not always accurate, unbiased, or trustworthy. Always question any source. Do not just question sites you disagree with; question those you agree with.

After you've collected your ten sites, summarize the information on the site in the annotation. Give specific details about the site content, including discussion of graphics, statistics, and other t information. This summary should be in essay style and should be at least one paragraph long.

The second part of the annotation should evaluate the information contained in the site. Is the information useful, unbiased, well supported, or accurate? Evaluate the graphics and layout. Is the site easy to access? These are suggestions; you might want to come up with on your own criteria.

Each annotation should begin with a bibliographic entry written in MLA style of documentation. This bibliographic information should be SINGLE SPACED with the second line indented, in alphabetical order by title. Here is an example:

US Fish and Wildlife Service. "Program Overview." Endangered Species Home Page. http://www.fws.gov/~r9endspp/programs.html (15 July 1996).

Notice that the entry begins with author's (or sponsor organization’s) name, the full title of the work in quotation marks, the title of the complete work if applicable in italics, the full URL (the address), and the date of your visit.

Assignment Sample #8:
Informative Paper Assignment

Based on an assignment by Deborah Burns, Merrimack College

This assignment requires you to explain a topic from one of our listserve discussions in detail (5 double-spaced pages), providing its background or history, explore causes or effects, and analyze the topic’s debatable issues. This informative paper should contain objective information from reliable web and library sources. It should convey information in a manner that is as clear, economical, and balanced, serving the needs, interests, and curiosity of IEDP members. Unlike argument papers, informative writing doesn't aim at supporting or exploring your opinion or your critical insights. Instead, informative writing asks you to adopt the stance of a careful reporter or an informed synthesizer.

Assignment Sample #9:
Argument Paper Assignment

Deborah Burns, Merrimack College

This argument paper asks you to take a stand on a topic from our discussion lists. In argumentative writing, your own voice, attitudes, opinions, and values play an important role. As a result you must attend carefully to the relationship between your ideas and your readers' potential responses. The primary goal of argumentative writing is to advance the your point of view, or to suggest a course of action to solve a problem. You want to say to your reader, "Try to see it my way," or "Here's a way to think about this, and here's why." Some helpful hints: (1) Identify an issue from our list discussions you feel strongly about; (2) Articulate your opinion; (3) Focus on a thesis and purpose, (4) Develop supporting evidence (from WWW, list discussions, library sources, interviews, etc.), (5) Recognize and respond to counter-arguments.

Linda Shamoon, University of Rhode Island

Project goal:

To create 3 - 4 well designed web pages for members of your IEDP forum, informing them about a proposed action a new development with respect to an issue you and they are debating.

The pages:

1. A home page to introduce the impending or proposed action or decision. The home page should also explain why this issue is important and provide links to your other pages.

2. A linked "FAQ’s" page that presents a few of the typical questions asked about your issue and presents answers that appeal to your audience. (In your own words!)

3. A linked page that previews 3 good, stable and helpful WWW sites on the theme (i.e. a mini web biblio. - your own words).

4. Extra credit: A linked page that suggests and makes possible a real and effective action for the reader to take on behalf of your issue.

         5. Also due at completion of project: a list of your sources of information and images.

Activity Sequence: (1) select a topic from an on-going IEDP thread (2) locate a recent development; (3) complete an audience analysis; (4) locate and write-up audience-centered content; (5) develop a design and navigation plan; (6) execute the plan in Netscape (7) invite students on your IEDP forum to view and critique the pages; (8) revise the pages based on audience response.

Audience Analysis- Your audience for your web pages will be your peers in the forum. Your task is to analyze this audience, then to choose your web page content in light of your audience analysis.

a. What are the different stances toward your issue to be found in the forum? Name the people associated with each stance. Which is the most widely held stance? This stance and the people who hold it are your target audience.

b. For the most widely held stance in the forum, what is the primary LOGOS that supports this stance? There may be several reasons and evidence to support the stance. Copy an e-mail which demonstrates the main line of reasoning. Now, explain this logic in your own words.

c. What misconceptions does this audience seem to have about your issue (or development)? What content might you provide on your web pages to dispel these misconceptions or faulty logic?

d. What does this audience know accurately about your recent development? What new information, ideas or arguments could you provide to add to their knowledge?

e. What attitudes, values or beliefs seem to be held by this audience? There may be several attitudes and beliefs at play. Copy an e-mail which demonstrates these values. Explain the attitudes and beliefs in your own words.

h. Which of these values and attitudes could you appeal to in delivering your message about this issue or development to your audience? (Attitudes and values help determine why an audience thinks an issue is important and when they will take action on an issue.)

f. Your web pages should change or deepen your audience’s stance, logic, and/or attitudes and values. In light of your answers to all of the questions, brainstorm and list some of the content and images that might appear on your (a) home page, (b) FAQ page, (c) links page and (d) action page that will have such an impact. Connect your earlier answers to these decisions.

Linda Shamoon, University of Rhode Island

Project goal:

To create an informative, easy to use flyer, brochure, booklet, or web site for members of your local community that will help them participate in public life. Your document should motivate readers to participate and it should be non-partisan.

Your document might be a voter information packet; a brochure about local referenda, candidates, or pending legislation; a directory of non-profit activist agencies; directories for contacting elected officials and local administrators, etc.

Activity Sequence: (1) based on your IEDP forum, select a an area of citizen participation in which your peers do not know to proceed (2) locate and analyze the layout, features and content of similar non-partisan documents in the public realm; (3) complete an audience analysis and write-up audience-centered content; (4) develop your design plan for your document; (6) execute the plan and invite students on your IEDP forum to view and critique the document; (8) revise the pages based on audience response.

Audience Analysis- Your audience for your document will be your peers in the forum. Your task is to analyze this audience, then to choose your content in light of your audience analysis.

a. What does your audience know about to go about participating in your selected area of citizen participation? Post questions to your forum to determine their knowledge.

b. Through what appeals could you stimulate this audience to participate in this citizen activity? Ask your forum members why and when they would engage in such activity.

c. What manner of document would help them participate? Ask your forum members about their use of brochures, web pages, etc.

d. Your document should motivate your audience to engage in this citizen activity. In light of your answers to all of the questions, brainstorm and list some of the content and images that might appear in your document. Match this analysis with your analysis of such documents. Start creating your citizen action document.

Beverly Wall, Trinity College (Connecticut)

Objectives of the Special Conference Project:

(1) Collaborative Research: to give you an opportunity to "specialize" and work together with others as you examine closely one of the many sub-topics that make up our broad subject--the study of political rhetoric and the media;

(2) Effective Presentation: to give you practice in thinking about how to present the results of your study clearly and persuasively to a large audience, and to enable all of us in the audience--students and faculty--to benefit from your work.

For a group topic, you might analyze the campaign rhetoric of a particular candidate, or you might examine how a particular issue is argued by two or more candidates. You might follow the coverage of the Presidential election in one newspaper or on one news network, or take one issue and do a comparative analysis of how it is treated in two or more news magazines or on two or more networks. You could take a specific political talk-show on TV or radio and track the conversation for three-to-five days. You could do an evaluation of specific websites run by candidates, parties, or advocacy groups. You might study political satire on late-night talk-shows or in print cartoons or comics, or the effects of movies or novels with political themes. You might explore an issue that you feel is important but is not being discussed by the candidates or in the mainstream press.

For modes of presentation at the E-Democracy Student Conference, I encourage you to think rhetorically and creatively about how you can communicate the results of your study. You might organize a panel discussion, or plan a mock debate, or put together an annotated web page, or set up a poster display, etc.

Group Logistics:

The class will divide into groups of two, three, or four. You can use the class website to propose topics and form groups. If you haven’t formed a group by Tuesday, Oct. 31, I will assign you to a group in class. We will take class time to do group work and submit preliminary plans.

You will need to keep an individual log with notes of your work in the group. This information, along with an informal one-page assessment of your group’s presentation at the conference, will be due on Tuesday, Nov. 28.

Dates:
Oct. 31, Tuesday Groups formed and report of preliminary plans for projects
Nov. 7, Tuesday Post titles and descriptions of projects on class website
Nov. 17, Friday Presentation at E-Democracy Student Conference (10am-3pm)
Nov. 28, Tuesday Logs and assessments due

By URI Students in Wrt 235 Writing in Electronic Environments, Spring 2000:

1. Be a good responder. (Do more than say, "I agree with you.")

2. Make sure that your responses are non-offensive. But don't be afraid to make some waves with your responses. If you are not writing what you truly feel, you are only hurting the discussion group.

3. Make sure that your responses are well thought out and that they have good supporting statements. Make credible statements in well thought out answers.

4. Don't post a response just to post it. Make sure that you fully agree with what you are writing because another member in the discussion may ask you to defend your point.

5. Be aware and welcome a diversity of views and a multiracial audience.

6. Take time to correct the grammar and punctuation and spelling.

7. You don’t have to respond to every message. Try to be a part of some conversations on different topics but not on all of them.

8. Research and provide information that may further the discussion.

From The Research Paper and the World Wide Web (Rodrigues and Rodrigues, 2nd ed. Prentice Hall):

1. Before you start writing and sending off a message to the IEDP discussion, read all of the posts relevant to your thread since you last posted.

2. At the start of your message, indicate to whom you are responding and the idea to which you are responding.

3. Do not copy the entire message into your response

4. Write about one topic per e-mail message and aim at about one screen of text (or two).

5. Sign your name and university at the end of messages.

6. Complete the "Subject Line" of the message.

7. Reread your post one last time before you send it.

8. Do not throw a flame.

9. Do not write in capital letters. THIS IS CONSIDERED SHOUTING.